


The Strange and The Bizarre

by UkuleleShitpost



Category: No Fandom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-19 13:57:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8211019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UkuleleShitpost/pseuds/UkuleleShitpost





	1. Chapter 1

It’s morning. I hear the sun rise, with the usual screams that are accompanied by that. I slowly open my eyes to the mundane sight of my room. From what I can tell, today is Saturday. I contemplate sleeping for a while longer, but I decide not to. I go to the living room to see the start of a brand new day. The sun has risen, and the screams have stopped, but the outside is covered in fog. It was going to be one of those days. I do what any other young adult like me would do: I go down to the kitchen to prepare myself some breakfast and some coffee while in the presence of an eye, floating untethered to either time or space, watching my every movement. I tried talking to it before, but it won’t talk. They’re kinda rude like that. After I’m done eating my breakfast, I wash the dishes and I go upstairs back to my room. On the way, I greet the tall, slim, featureless creature that lives in the living room. They wave an appendage like a person waves their hand, and then they continue to stand still. Watching. Judging.  
I open my laptop and I start browsing tumblr. I do that until my mom wakes up.  
“Did you stay up all night again?” she asks, rubbing her hand over her eyes to get rid of the sand.  
“Nah, I just happened to wake up early,” I reply, “I even ate breakfast already.”  
“Oh ok.”  
She starts to head down to the kitchen, greeting the creature living in our living room on the way down.  
Gotta be honest, weekends tend to be boring for me. I’m not a social person, and I’m also lazy, so I just stay in my house, tending to my cat and my dog, staying on the computer, and making sure that the being locked up in our basement doesn’t escape. I’m not sure why they mustn’t leave their confinement, other than being instructed that is “very important”, but they make great conversation partner. I sometimes talk to them whenever I’m feeling bored or troubled. They’re really wise.  
I’m watching YouTube videos when we hear the doorbell ring. My mom asks me to get it. I pick up the phone-like device used to answer the doorbell.  
“Hello?” I ask.  
From the other side of the receiver, I hear a raspy whisper, saying:  
“The eternal night comes near…as angelic being and hellish beasts weep….the darkness shall consume all.”  
I put my hand on the microphone and I yell to my mom, who’s in her room  
“Hey, it’s the prophecy guy again. What do I tell him.”  
“Uh, not today! Tell him to come back tomorrow.”  
I tell the man what my mom told me to tell him, and I hear a raspy “Alright” before the audio cuts.  
Nothing much happens through the rest of the day. Eventually, the sun is close to finishing its daily journey through the sky as it sets on the horizon; whispers filling the air as stars start to appear in the black void above. I stay in my room, playing a video game until I feel the need to sleep, while ignoring the dark hands appearing from the shadows behind me.


	2. Chapter 2

I love music. I love listening and playing music. It’s one of my favorite pastimes, but my mom tells me not to play too loudly, otherwise I could disturb the neighbours. You never want to disturb the neighbours. Nevertheless, I still find time to sit back, get my ukulele, and play some songs. It always helps me clear my mind after a particularly bad day. It’s also a neat distraction when demons keep tapping my windows, demanding entry into my house, and into my soul. They’re literally the worst.  
I’m playing the bass when I hear my cat, Pepper, meow outside my door. I open it and see my cat staring at me. His eyes are kaleidoscopes; filled with a multitude of colors. He sees everything; what was, is, and will be. He stares at me for a second with his colorful, omniscient eyes, then flops near my feet. I kneel down and I start petting him. He immediately starts purring. I love my cat so much.

The day, like always, are uneventful. Just me playing music, while the gardener tends to the garden, like gardeners tend to do. Why does gardening have to be so loud? I imagine that it has to be because the screams coming from the panicked grass are so loud and horrifying that the gardener has to scream louder. I just wished there was a better way, you know? Eventually, he’s done with his work and my mom asks me if I can go pay him. I say no problem and she hands me the money. I go downstairs (greeting the tall, featureless creature living in our living room on the way down) and I walk towards the gardener, who’s now standing still, unblinking in front of the entrance to the garden. I give him the usual payment; 8 dollars and a secret. After I put the money in his hand and after finishing whispering a secret into his ear, his eyes start glowing, he opens his mouth to let out an inhuman, bloodcurdling howl. The room shakes, and after a few seconds, he’s gone, alongside all of his tools. Gardeners are weird creatures.  
The day is coming near its end, as whispers start filling the empty evening air. The roads are filling up with people trying to get home after a tiring day of work and with people desperate to find a safe place from the beast that is hot on their trail. I’m outside my house’s porch, watching the stars slowly appear on the void above, as well as the lycanthropes go out into the night, howling and scattering. I continue to watch the stars, unmoving from their places light years from where I am. I often hear people talk about feeling small when looking up the stars, and it somewhat baffles me. It’s not that I don’t feel insignificant, I feel like that all the time, but when I look to the stars all I can think when I look at them is how lucky I am to be looking at them right now. They’re beautiful, and I have the chance of sitting on my porch and watching them.

I may feel insignificant, but I’ve never felt so lucky.


	3. Chapter 3

“So how was your week?” My dad asked, before putting some of the eggs he ordered into his mouth.  
Today, my dad thought it would be a good idea to have breakfast together. To be closer with each other. I thought it was hard to be close when I don’t know where he was most of the time. You just appear without warning when we least expect you, I wanted to say, but I took a sip of orange juice instead.   
“I don’t know. It was ok, I guess.” I said, putting my glass of orange juice down.   
“Did anything interesting?”  
I gave it some thought  
“No, just the usual. You know how it is.”   
He doesn’t know how it is, and as a matter of fact, neither do I.

We’re having breakfast at a restaurant that was recommended to him by a co-worker. It was a beautiful place, or so I imagined, since we were surrounded by endless, thick fog that obscured everything outside our table. The service was good though, as the unseen waiters were quick to have our order and they delivered just as quick through the fog. Both of our meals consisted of sunny side up eggs, some fried beans, toast, and bacon. 

“And, uh, how’s work?” I asked, trying to make conversation.  
“Ah, well, you know I can’t tell you that.” My dad replied between bites of toast.  
“Oh yeah, I forgot.”  
I remembered that my dad worked on something that has been described to me as “too dangerous and eldritch for your mind to comprehend.” That’s why he disappeared so often. The job decided the schedule for him, and he could be summoned at any second. Even now, both of us weren’t sure if he will be summoned in the middle of our conversation. 

We continued to eat in silence, unsure what to say to each other. It’s hard to know a person when that person can vanish at any second. My dad understood that, which is why he suggested this meet up.

“How are your friends?” he asked, breaking the silence between us.  
“Oh, they’re alright. I haven’t talked to them recently, but I know they’re ok”  
We recently graduated from high school, so some of us still needed intensive physical and emotional therapy. My friends and I were probably the lucky ones, since we graduated with only mild psychic scarring, but some students in our grade lost limbs and also lost part of their sanity. Some, just didn’t make it at all. High school is like that.

Eventually, we both finished our meals. We placed our dirty plates into the fog where they turned into dust. After, a ticket appeared in the middle of the table. My dad picked it up and took a look at it.  
“Ah, don’t worry. I’ll take care of this” he said.   
He then took the ticket and placed inside his shirt pocket.  
“Ah, sorry, but it seems I have to g-” and he vanished.

I sat there alone, fog surrounding everything I could see. I tried to remember how to leave, but I realized, my dad and I just appeared here. I don’t even remember sitting down.  
“Uh, how do I leave?” I called out into the fog.  
And from the fog came nothing, just silence.


	4. Chapter 4

Today, I started training at a call center. I was planning on studying abroad eventually, but until then, I needed a way to earn money. Besides, a job is something that “adults” do and I am technically an “adult” already, so I guessed the time was right.

My day started by going to the call center. I had to go into a dark room, illuminated only by candles, then I had to draw a circle with multiple diagrams using salt. After the circle was complete, I stood in the middle of it, closed my eyes, and said a series of words in a long dead language. I felt the room shake, then I opened my eyes to see myself standing in the call center lobby. This particular company wanted to go with a modern aesthetic, so the walls were white with simple, colorful decorations. I was greeted by a tall, hooded figure who stood behind a desk. I said that I was already hired and that I was coming for training. The figure gave me a slow nod, then raised their long, almost skeletal arm, and pointed me to the waiting room.

I sat there for 5 minutes with other beings that would typically look for a job in a place like this; young adults like me, old adults, adult spiders, adult dimensional shamblers, and adult eldritch things. The wait was brief. Before long, the hooded figure came in and pointed up, meaning that we had to go upstairs. We followed them up to a small theater that was most likely set up for company presentations and, obviously, to introduce the new workers to their new job. We saw multiple presentations made by multiple members of staff. They talked about the company history and basic rules and all that, here’s what I got, summarized:

• The company, like all call centers, was floating with no direction through the void that composes time and space. This is how they get their top notch phone receptions and internet speeds.  
• The company cares a lot about employee satisfaction, so we’re allowed to hire hitmen (other dimensional or not) to take out any employee we don’t like. They refused to take questions about the mortality rates.  
• The company, also, cares a lot about security, which is why every worker will be given a single, unique secret. If the worker ever reveals the secret to anyone, all universes will explode as time and space are reduced to nothing; cracking the fabrics of reality until everything returns to nothing. Also, we won’t be allowed to bring our phones, laptops, or music players into the work area. Bummer.  
• No tobacco, alcohol, ritual sacrifices, or summonings that are demonic in nature or otherwise in the office area. I heard multiple people groan after this point was made.

There probably was more, but my memory isn’t reliable. No one’s memories are reliable. After my first day of training, I came back home, somehow, and I felt satisfied. I told my mom and the being who lives in our basement about my first day. They were both happy for me. That night, after the whispers of the sunset died down, I pondered a bit about my day at work as dark shadowy hands tried to embrace me. Even though I didn’t plan on working there for all eternity like other people do, I still felt content at being there. Some people aren’t satisfied with feeling content, but me?

To me, content was enough.


	5. Chapter 5

I went to visit my old high school. I still had friends there that have yet to survive the harsh and inhuman trials there. I didn’t know what our school’s name was, as it was written with a strange form of writing that resembles scratch marks, but I knew that the acronym everyone used for it was “ABC”. Fitting for an educational facility. 

I stepped out of my mom’s car into the main parking lot. At this time of the day, the parking lot’s floor has frozen into something like concrete. Most of the time, it’s like a river of smoldering hot lava. I made my way to the front door, hoping that it won’t kill me because I’m technically a student anymore. The gigantic skeletal hands that made the main entrance door opened to reveal two gigantic eyeballs on the palms. They looked at me, coldly and uncaring, as they decided whether I deserved to live or not. After a minute, they closed up, and the hands moved away to open up the way.

The ABC was well regarded as one of the best funded and best equipped schools in this dimension, which meant that it was more lethal than other schools. It was lunch time, so I didn’t have to worry about facing the hallway monitors. They are one of the most deadly and horrifying creatures ever seen or dreamed. Their beastly howls can send shivers down the spine of even the bravest of warriors. Of course, their menace is nothing compared to that of the dreaded teachers. No one can see a teacher in the eye, and survive. 

I made my way through the dark, blood splattered halls, looking for the cafeteria. If you’re wondering why I would return to such a dangerous and uninhabitable place, it’s because I wanted to see some friends that haven’t graduated yet. I missed talking to them, so I decided to pay them a visit where I would talk to them, and give them some gifts. If I was going to find them anywhere, it would be in the cafeteria. 

As I made my way further into the school, I could hear the suffering, bloodcurdling screams of those unfortunate enough to be stuck inside a teacher’s classroom. I still haven’t known a fate far worse than being stuck in a teacher’s classroom. While I knew it wasn’t enough, I gave a small prayer to the one stuck in there; I prayed that their death would be quick. 

Eventually, I started smelling something along the lines of fear, desperation, and recently cooked food. I knew I was close. No one knows why the cafeteria is the safest place in the ABC. Some theorize that it is because of an ancient seal placed by a now long dead student. Other say that it is because they are scared of the smell of food that is not terrified student. While some others say that is because they don’t like the atmosphere. Nevertheless, the cafeteria is the only safe haven in the entire school. As I pushed the blood caked doors, I was greeted with point of a knife on a stick, made with a knife and with a stick. 

“Oh, I didn’t know it was you!” I heard the knife-stick wielder say. As they lowered the spear, I saw a being of light smiling at me.  
“It’s always good to see you again, Paul”  
We gave each other a hug, then hurried in.


End file.
